From: Nigel Hay (Nigel@milweb.net)
Date: Wed Feb 04 2004 - 12:22:29 PST
Gosh my past catches up with me, I think you are right and it was me that
penned the article. I think it was called Pacifics across the Channel.Happy
days.
Nige
----- Original Message -----
From: "chance wolf" <chance_wolf@shaw.ca>
To: "Nigel Hay" <Nigel@milweb.net>; "Military Vehicles Mailing List"
<mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 8:42 PM
Subject: Re: [MV] Any M26s Pacifics out there?
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Nigel Hay" <Nigel@milweb.net>
> To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 11:46 PM
> Subject: Re: [MV] Any M26s Pacifics out there?
>
>
> > Ineed it was a recent article in Classic Military Vehicles. There are
> quite
> > a lot of Pacifics in Europe, 15 years ago I was one of the "helpers"
that
> > dragged 3 out of a yard in France.
>
> Wasn't that adventure an article in Army Motors about, uhh..100 years ago?
> I remember bits of it, I think. I might be compositing it all with other
> articles over the years, but I thought an American collector wanted one to
> ship back home to the 'States, and when something of a more manageable
size
> was suggested, I think the guy replied that he "wasn't interested in any
> vehicle unless you could walk underneath to do an oil change."
>
> A logging outfit here in the outskirts of Vancouver, B.C. bought up a
bunch
> of trucks at the end of the War for logging at Stave Lake. The vehicles
> wound up in various remote areas accessible only by an old Landing Craft
> kept for the purpose, and among these vehicles were several CMPs, at least
> one Jeep, one armoured Lynx, several WC-64KD ambulances, several
Studebaker
> 5th wheel tractors and cargoes, at least one M-135 (a later addition) -
and
> one M26 Pacific. Many, many stories circulated about all this stuff for
> years, and one weekend our local chapter of the MVPA, "Western Command",
> booked a Hydro cabin at the accessible end of Stave Lake and had a
> combination overnight./exploration event.
>
> The first day we visited the nearer of the two spots and found the
> vulture-picked carcasses of the armoured Lynx, the M-135, various bits and
> pieces of the Studies (rusty cab fragments pushed off the side of a mound,
> mostly), and CMP chassis in various stages of completeness (one still had
a
> "Western Command" or "Prairie Command" marking visible, from what I
> remember.) There was also a CMP Cab 13 Cab top perched up out of harm's
way
> on a berm beneath a few trees, as though someone had meant to come back
for
> it at some point in the future.
>
> The second day (after fussing with the boat for an eternity trying to come
> up with a running outboard), three of us set off to the upper, further
part
> of the lake in the hopes of finding some of the rumoured goodies before
the
> daylight faded. Unfortunately, no sooner had we touched the landing and
> walked a short way up the road, it was time to return to base rather than
> risk getting caught out on the lake after dark (the 'lake' is a forest
which
> was flooded by the creation of a Hydro dam, and you have to "watch where
> you're driving" in quite a few spots.) We did however spy an axle or
some
> other chunk of drivetrain sitting nearer the landing which one of our mob
> thought likely from the M26.
>
> Before anyone thinks of mounting an expedition similar to Nigel's in this
> particular area, the logging outfit was apparently instructed to "clean
up"
> the site, and according to a couple of people (one who overflew the
airstrip
> at the site fairly often), the M26, the W64KDs and whatever else might've
> been at that end of the lake were shovelled into a pit and buried. The
only
> way out was the Landing Craft, and that many vehicles exiting the site via
> that route would've been noticed by a great many people who noticed
nothing
> of the sort.
>
> Anyhow - fun times. Makes me want to fire up the Evinrude and snag one of
> the metal detectors from the Props dept. at work.
>
> (I did thieve a data plate from a destroyed Studebaker tractor cab. 1945
> 6x4. I still have it somewhere.)
>
>
>
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